The Polar Treasure

Chapter 7 THE MAP

THE SUN was up. Doc's remarkable companions lounged in the skyscraper office. They had lost a night's sleep, but showed no effects of it.

Ham was honing the blade of his sword cane to a razor edge, looking ominously at Monk each time he tested its sharpness. Monk sat in an easy chair, reading a pocket manual of how to raise hogs. He took pains to hold the book so Ham could see the title. Monk often maintained — always within earshot of Ham — that some day he was going to retire and raise pork for a certain finely dressed lawyer he knew. Johnny, the archaeologist, was penning a chapter in the book he was writing on the ancient Mayan civilization.

Long Tom, looking pale as an invalid, was in the laboratory, humped over an apparatus which for intricacy would have given Steinmetz a headache.

Truly an amazing crew, these men.

Doc Savage entered. With him was Victor Vail. Renny walked in after them.

The blind man's neck was swollen somewhat where the rope had nearly strangled him to death — Doc had arrived just in time to save him.

The explanation of Vail's situation was quickly made.

"The dentist don't know a thing about the gang that seized him," Doc concluded. "They called him to the door and cracked him over the head."

"It was Ben O'Gard!" Victor Vail put in, his voice thick with emotion. "Oh, Mr. Savage, I was so mistaken about that man! I thought he was my friend. I had every confidence in the world in him. When he called me here

"So it was Ben O'Gard who telephoned you!" Monk interposed.

At the sound of Monk's mild voice, Victor Vail registered great remorse. Obviously, he was terribly sorry for that crack he had taken at Monk's head with the paper weight.

"I do not know how I shall ever redeem myself for my horrible mistake," choked the blind man. "Ben O'Gard told me an awful story of how you men were holding me here to keep me from seeing him. I believed O'Gard. I know I was a fool to do that now, but at the time, I regarded O'Gard as a friend who had twice saved my life. He told me to escape and come to him. That is why I struck you."

"Forget it!" chuckled Monk.

Renny spoke up. "What baffles me is why Ben O'Gard took over the dentist's office."

Doc's strong lips warped their faint smile.

"Simple," he said. "Ben O'Gard wanted to use the dentist's X ray!"

THIS STATMENT elicited surprised looks from every one present.

"X ray!" Renny grunted. "Why'd they want the X ray?"

"I'll show you the reason in a minute," Doc replied. "First, though, I want to find out what Ham learned about the liner Oceanic."

Ham now divulged the information which several transatlantic telephone calls to England had gathered.

"On the English records, the liner Oceanic is down as lost at sea-sunken without trace," Ham said. "There's no hint of this stuff about it being trapped in the polar ice pack."

"I'm not surprised," Doc Savage said dryly.

"I've got something that will surprise you," Ham smiled. "There was fifty million dollars in gold bullion and diamonds on the Oceanic!"

An electric shock seemed to sweep the room.

"Fifty million! Will you say that again!" Monk said mildly.

"Fifty million in gold and sparklers," repeated Ham impressively.

"That explains it!" Doc declared.

"Explains what?" Renny wanted to know.

"What's behind this whole mess," retorted Doc. "Come into the laboratory. I want to show you something, brothers."

It was an excited crowd of adventurers which surged into the vast laboratory room.

From a tray. Doc lifted several large photographic prints. These were X ray pictures which he had taken of Victor Vail in his course of examining the violinist to determine his eve affliction. Until now, Doc had not had time to as much as examine the prints.

He held one up.

"Holy cow!" barked Renny.

"Exactly," Doc agreed. "More than fifteen years ago, while Victor Vail was under the influence of an anaesthetic, some one tattooed a map on his back with a chemical, the presence of which could only be detected by use of a certain tensity of X ray."

"You mean I have carried the map on my back these many years without knowing it?" Victor Vail questioned wonderingly.

"You certainly have. You recall the man with the clicking teeth who seemed to haunt your trail through the years? Well, he was simply keeping track of you and the map."

"But what is the map?"

"It shows where the liner Oceanic is aground on a land far within the arctic regions," Doc announced.

SOME MINUTES were expended examining the chart.

"But I cannot understand why I carried the map around unmolested for so many years!" Victor Vail murmured.

"Possibly I can reconstruct a story which explains that," Doc told him. "The fifty millions in treasure aboard the Oceanic led Ben O'Gard, Keelhaul de Rosa, and the other members of the crew to mutiny. They probably disposed of all who did not join them!"

"The beasts!" Victor Vail covered his face with his hands. "My poor wife. My poor little daughter, Roxey! That devil, Ben O'Gard, murdered them! And I thought he was my friend!"

"It's merely guesswork about the murder part!" Doc put in hastily. "I said that simply because the eagerness of Ben O'Gard and Keelhaul de Rosa to get this map shows they think the Oceanic is where they left it, even now. This indicates there were no survivors but themselves."

Victor Vail recovered his control. '"When Keelhaul de Rosa tried to kidnap me from Ben O'Gard, he was really trying to steal the treasure map!"

"Of course," Doc agreed. "That explains why the two factions split. No doubt they have been waging unremitting war with each other since that day, each faction trying to slay the other so they would be free to secure the chart off your back, and go get the fifty millions."

"I'm surprised they left it behind in the first place!" Monk put in.

"We barely escaped with our lives as it was," Victor Vail assured him. "To carry more than food over the ice pack was impossible."

Ham made a quick gesture with his sword cane — and Monk ducked involuntarily.

"Both Ben O'Gard and Keelhaul de Rosa now have copies of this map," Ham said thoughtfully.

Doc Savage let his strange golden eyes rest on each of his friends in turn. The gilded orbs seemed to be asking a question — and receiving a highly satisfying answer.

"Brothers," Doc said softly, "these birds who are after that treasure are fellows who have no right to any man's gold. What say we get it ahead of them? We can use the money to enlarge our secret institution in upstate New York to which we send criminals to be made into useful citizens. The place is becoming a little crowded."

Pandemonium seized Doc's headquarters.

Renny swung over to the door. His enormous fist struck. The panel flew out of the door as though hit by a cannonball. No door was safe around Renny when he was happy.

Monk fled wildly about the place, each apelike leap barely taking him out of reach of the lusty whacks delivered by the pursuing Ham's sword cane.

Long Tom and Johnny got into a mock fight and promptly upset a stand of apparatus. In the ensuing crash, several hundred dollars' worth of equipment was ruined.

The horseplay was their way of saying they thought Doc's treasure-hunt scheme was the best idea they'd heard recently.

BEFORE THAT day was done, Doc Savage had operated on Victor Vail's eyes.

He performed the delicate bit of surgery in New York's finest hospital. Those who surrounded him as he worked were not ordinary nurses. They were some of the leading American eye specialists. One had flown from Boston to see the operation, another from Detroit, and two from Baltimore.

They wanted to see this epochal piece of work, for Doc Savage was seeking to do something which every expert present had until this very day maintained was impossible.

And what the assembled specialists saw the mighty bronze man do that day in the New York hospital operating room was something they would talk about for a long time to come. The mastery of it held them breathless long after big Doc Savage had taken his departure.

Victor Vail would have his sight back!

THE NEXT morning, as Ham entered Doc's office, Doc was taking his exercises.

Ham sat down to wait. Doc took his exercises — a terrific two-hour routine each day of his life, and nothing interfered.

Doc's ritual was similar to ordinary setting-up movements, but infinitely harder, more violent. He took them without the usual exercising apparatus. For instance, he would make certain muscles attempt to lift his arm, while other muscles strove to hold it down. That way he furthered not only muscular tissue, but control over individual muscles as well. Every ligament in his great, bronzed body he exercised in this fashion.

From a case which held his special equipment, Doc took a pad and pencil. He wrote a number of several figures. Eyes shut, he extracted the square and cube root in his head, carrying the figures to many decimal places.

Out of the case came a device which made sound waves of all tones, some of a wave length so short or so long as to be inaudible to the normal ear. Years of straining to detect these waves had enabled Doc to make his ears sensitive enough to hear many sounds inaudible to ordinary people.

With his eyes closed, Doc rapidly catalogued by the sense of smell several score of different odors, all very vague, each contained in a small vial racked in the case.

There were other exercises, far more intricate. Ham shook his head wonderingly. He knew that five minutes at the clip Doc was doing the routine would be more than he, himself, could stand. And Ham was husky enough to give most professional boxers a drubbing.

From the cradle, Doc had done these exercises each day. They accounted for his astounding physique, his ability to concentrate, and his superkeen senses.

"What's on your mind?" Doc asked suddenly. His routine was over!

Ham plucked a newspaper out of a pocket.

"What do you think of this?" He handed Doc the paper, indicating an item, It read:

WANT TO BUY A POLAR

SUBMARINE EXPEDITION?

There is one for sale. Captain Chauncey McCluskey

announced this morning that he is hunting a purchaser for a

share of the projected trip of the submarine Helldiver under

the polar ice.

Captain McCluskey has the submarine, fully equipped and

ready to go. But it seems he has run out of money.

There was more of it, written up in typical tabloid style. But it told nothing more of importance — except that the submarine Helldiver was tied up at a local pier, and Captain Chauncey McCluskey could be found aboard.

"Who is Captain McCluskey?" Ham inquired.

Doc shook his head slowly. "Search me! I never heard of the man before. Nor have I heard of any other projected submarine trip under the pole."

"This sub may be just what we need," Ham declared. "But there's one point which has me guessing. It's darn queer the thing should pop up at just the time we're interested."

Doc smiled slightly. "It won't hurt to look into it, anyway."

The regular elevator — not the super-speed one — lowered them to the street level.

They took the first taxi which rolled up.

Doc gave their driver the address of the pier to which was moored the polar submarine, Helldiver.

Office workers were going to their daily tasks. The walks were crowded. Each subway kiosk vomited humanity like an opened anthill. The cab rolled down into a cheaper district, where merchants were setting a part of their wares out on the walks.

Ham toyed with his sword cane, and wondered what kind of a tub the Helldiver would be.

Suddenly he snapped rigid as an icicle.

In to the cab had permeated the low, mellow sound which was part of Doc. Weird, exotic, the note trilled up and down the musical scale. Looking directly at Doc's strong lips, Ham could not tell the sound was coming from them, such a quality of ventriloquism did the trilling note have. Indeed, Doc himself probably did not quite realize he was making it..

The sound could have but one meaning now.

Danger!

"What is it?" Ham demanded.

"Listen!" Doc told him abruptly.

Silence lasted about a minute. Then Ham's high, intelligent forehead acquired a dubious pucker.

"I hear a clicking noise at intervals, I think," he said. "Sounds like somebody shaking a couple of dice!"

"Remember the clicking noise Victor Vail mentioned having heard often during the past years?"

Ham never got to say whether he recollected or not.

Their driver suddenly flicked several small objects back into the tonneau. He was careful to keep his face from being seen.

The objects he flung were the grape-like balls of anesthetic Doc had used to overpower Ben O'Gard's hired gangsters. No doubt these had come from the scene of that affair, since Doc had neglected to retrieve such of them as had not been broken.

The globules shattered.

Doc and Ham were caught. With hardly a quiver, they tumbled over unconscious on the cushions.

They had not glimpsed the countenance of their driver.